Are These Spinosaurus Bones?

[hollynotsowell]

Hi all, Is there anyone out there who knows about Spinosaurus? I have been given the chance of buying some specimens from a collector. Just want to check if these are indeed spinosaur and not something else like crocodile or african trex. Images attached! I would be grateful for any help.

[grampa dino]

Hi back: from the photos it is hard to tell and even if you hand them in your hand

it would be every hard to tell if they are indeed Spinosaurus

How much do you trust the collector

[tracer]

broken bone pieces like that are normally only identifiable if they're found in a context that allows the finder's expertise to state with some degree of confidence what they are, or are not. once out of that context, you're "buying the story" based on your level of confidence in the integrity and expertise of the person who found them and is telling you what they are.

should you still be interested in such pieces, ask the person "how do you know what they are from?" and evaluate the response based on your own ability to reason whether the response makes sense and whether such a conclusion can actually be drawn.

[hollynotsowell]

Hi back: from the photos it is hard to tell and even if you hand them in your hand

it would be every hard to tell if they are indeed Spinosaurus

How much do you trust the collector

I know the seller very well, and I know that the material was collected by him while hunting in Morocco last year. The question is whether his judgement or expertese is correct in identifying the pieces correctly. I know from other collectors that the material from this area is collected loose on the ground or with very little in the way of digging.

[Auspex]

I don't know how anyone could ID those.

[PaleoPastels]

Its usually hard to ID a particular dinosaur species just by looking at pieces of bones... Maybe find out where they came from and also the age of the material it was found in?

[jpc]

I agree... these are what we call chunkosaurs. i.e. dinosaur bnes that cannot be identified to either genus (or even family), nor can we tell what part of the body they came from. Dinosaur bones from Morocco, possibly large croc is what they can be ID'd as, as far as I am concerned.

[siteseer]

Yeah, those are just pieces of junk bone. Beware of dealers who are somehow able to give a name to busted-up bone.

Just as an extra note...There is no "African T. rex." Tyrannosaurus never lived in Africa. It only lived in North America and possibly Asia (depending on the interpretation of Tarbosaurus you follow). Fossils sold as "African T. rex" are almost always from Morocco but some dealers don't like to say that because some people don't like to buy anything from there. I realize that some dealers use that term just as a nickname to give a potential buyer an idea of the animal but I have also seen that term used without also providing the real identification (usually Carcharodontosaurus) leaving the buyer to believe he is picking up an actual Tyrannosaurus tooth/bone. This has probably been said before on this forum and maybe that is already understood by everybody here but I thought it should be repeated.

Hi all, Is there anyone out there who knows about Spinosaurus? I have been given the chance of buying some specimens from a collector. Just want to check if these are indeed spinosaur and not something else like crocodile or african trex. Images attached! I would be grateful for any help.

[Terry Dactyll]

HNSW.... Dodgy! are they only for sectioning and polishing? There use or value for anything else is very limited... he should pay you to take them off his hands really...

[fossilshk]

I think no body can answer you whether Spinosaurus Bones...

[sander]

I agree with the rest, impossible to identify. maybe from the first photo are some pieces of the sail of spinosaurus, but the rest is unidentifiable (or some word like that)

[Boesse]

Those are unidentifiable vertebrate bones, and are potentially Cretaceous, or Cenozoic. Morocco also has cenozoic deposits, including ones with archaeocete whales. These could even be whale bones. My point is that that guy flat out lied to you - there's no way these are identifiable past the level of "Vertebrata" or "tetrapoda/amniota"

Bobby

[jpc]

Those are unidentifiable vertebrate bones, and are potentially Cretaceous, or Cenozoic. Morocco also has cenozoic deposits, including ones with archaeocete whales. These could even be whale bones. My point is that that guy flat out lied to you - there's no way these are identifiable past the level of "Vertebrata" or "tetrapoda/amniota"

Bobby

There's whales in Morocco? What age? Are you gonna be working on them...if you need a collecting partner, I speak french...

[hollynotsowell]

Thanks Guys for that. I was'nt surprised at your answers at all, just wanted to verify what I thought deep down. I really just wanted to know if they could be identified as anything at all. I have been sent some more photos of other pieces he has (attached) and he says that they are from the Kem Kem Basin where he goes when he stops at Khamlia and Taouz. Interesting to hear that they could be whale bones, never thought of that! Does anyone have any opinion on the attached photos, or are these similar to the others. I have just sent a pm to Hssain to see what he thinks. Will post any reply that he sends.

[dhk]

Perhaps he found them associated with larger or better bones and IDd them as a group in which case you should ask him for pics of the entire find for certification. I assume that it's like collecting tracks, I often find great ones but really can not be sure what species made them. They are nice peices though and even if you never ID them, they will look great on a shelf.